IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU
Have you ever taken a personality test? The internet is full of fun and quirky ways to identify and describe your temperament.
Answering the questions with family or friends can be an entertaining way to learn more about each other. What is your favorite food? How do you spend your free time? Who is your favorite actor? Mundane details coalesce to create a surprisingly clear picture of your character and disposition, which the quiz translates into a rubric.
Which Jane Austen character are you? Which celebrity are you? Which color are you?—which flower?—which essential oil?—which season?
I don’t know whether the plethora of personality tests is symptomatic of a hyper-individualized culture, as might seem apparent, or a culture that is destroying individualism, as explained by Wendell Berry. Either way, it’s the culture in which we live: the culture of Self-Actualization.
In such an atmosphere, it is all too easy to approach the Spiritual Gift passages as another personality test.
For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit to another the gifts of healing by the same spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues.—I Corinthians 12:8-10
Which is my spiritual gift?—and how can I find out, if Paul doesn’t ask me how many Bible verses I’ve memorized, how much money I’ve given to the church, or what my witnessing style is?
Fortunately, the internet has corrected Paul’s surprising oversight. Perhaps you’ve seen the spiritual gifts compiled, itemized, alphabetized and bulleted online (or in books). The following is a “23 Spiritual Gifts List,” taken from the personality website UniquelyYou.com.
•Administration/ Ruling
•Apostleship/ Pioneering
•Craftsmanship
•Creative Communication
•Discernment
•Encouraging/ Exhorting
•Evangelism
•Faith
•Giving
•Healing
•Hospitality
•Intercession
•Interpretation
•Knowledge
•Leadership
•Miracles
•Pastoring/ Shepherding
•Prophecy/ Perceiving
•Teaching
•Tongues
•Serving/ Ministry
•Showing Mercy
•Wisdom
It’s a heady list. And for fewer than ten dollars, you will be provided with a questionnaire, biographical survey, scoring instructions, and other material to ‘diagnose’ your ‘supernatural motivation.’
I find no fault with clarity concerning spiritual gifts. But there is a problem, I believe, when these Bible passages are treated like diagnostic tools.
That a company successfully markets this kind of profiling service suggests to me that Christians are seeking personal definition and direction outside the proper context. We seem to have bought (literally, in this case!) the idea that Christian ministry is an individually-driven mission, and that we must ‘self-actualize’ if we are to do all we can for Christ.
I don’t count myself out. A few years ago, a Christian sister began a conversation by asking me, ‘So, what’s your spiritual gift?’— like it was Christianese for, ‘So, what’s your zodiac sign?’
Amid the stress of trying to remember all the spiritual gifts, I finally said that I enjoyed doing little things behind the scenes. ‘Service,’ the young lady announced, with the satisfied air of having pegged me somewhere.
I was embarrassed enough to look up the spiritual gifts when I got home. I don’t remember which passage I read—Romans 12, I Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, I Peter 4. But the Bible doesn’t help people looking for defined categories, so I resorted to one of those bulleted lists with extended descriptions.
Service looked pretty good to me. Service could be my spiritual gift!
Looking back, there were several things this approach to spiritual gifts did for me.
The emphasis fell on what work I was best suited to do (i.e., was already most comfortable doing).
Work I was not comfortable doing was dismissed with the idea that I was not gifted in that area. Faith, hospitality, knowledge, and mercy—perhaps these difficult things were not part of my own portion.
The emphasis was on self rather than service and sacrifice; it was about finding and fulfilling my special mission, and not about doing the work that needed to be done, the work that is Christ’s.
My spiritual life gained a work-based flair. The measure of my spiritual fulfillment was not Christ alone, but whether I was doing the work that fully expressed my individuality.
Not everyone will follow the false reasoning that I did. But that was my experience.
Earlier, I quoted the Spiritual Gifts ‘passage’ found in I Corinthians 12. Those would be the interesting verses for someone trying to decide on their spiritual gift. But the meaning of these verses is imbedded in a context (chap. 12-14) that is entirely lost in such cherry-picking.
Paul writes in order to explain spiritual gifts to Gentiles who once pursued them for their own sake rather than as instruments given by God for the edification of others. Paul specifically mentions wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, and others. (In context, it does not seem to me that Paul intended to be comprehensive, but to make the point that there are many gifts, but one Spirit and purpose.)
I am reading Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, which has widened my understanding of ancient Greco-romanic culture. Wisdom and knowledge, especially, were singularly pursued as ends in themselves. Men following wisdom, knowledge, or another spiritual gift, devoted themselves to the patron god who presided over it.
Is this the cultural atmosphere in which Paul originally spoke? It seems so. All spiritual gifts, he emphasizes, are given by one Spirit, that of the one true God. All spiritual gifts are given that we may support and edify the united body of Christ. (v. 14-27)
This is not an opportunity for self-expression but an opportunity to be part of a connected, functioning body.
Now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. and if they were all one member, where were the body?—I Corinthians 12:18-19
It is in the very nature of things that no person is dispensable—but neither is any person sufficient to himself, as argued by radical individualism.
Covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.—I Corinthians 12:31
This leads directly into the next chapter, famously known as the ‘Love Chapter.’ Paul tells us that love is more excellent than all spiritual gifts. Prophecy, faith, tongues—all these are gifts for an imperfect and temporal world. But love is a perfect thing which will continue into eternity.
When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.—I Corinthians 13:10
After love comes spiritual gifts (chap. 14), of which prophecy is the chief to be desired—that gift of edifying, exhorting and comforting others. Paul contrasts this quiet gift to the showier gift of tongues. Speaking in tongues was dramatic, and belonged to the ‘learned,’ but it did not increase understanding and unity among the brethren. Paul wished all Christians had the gift of tongues, but wished that first they would all have the gift of prophecy.
Forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church.—I Corinthians 14:12
God has indeed equipped you as a unique person with unique experiences in order that you might engage the world in a unique way. But are you a spiritual miser—fingering the talents you’ve been given, weighing them in your hand, even subjecting them to chemical testing? Or are you a spiritual steward, increasing your talents by wise investments?
Gold has no value unless you exchange it for incorruptible treasures. In spiritual gifts, what is not spent is lost.
• detail from Venus and the Graces Offering Gifts to a Young Girl by Sandro Botticelli •
July 28, 2013